FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Rewilding: The Story of Wolfhead Valley

Rewilding: The Story of Wolfhead Valley

By chloeofarroyo

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1033.9333
Fun913.9133
Innovation304.1933
Theme704.1733
Graphics1064.1433
Humor6892.3828
Mood2363.5831

Comments

ruoyu 2020-04-20 10:47

I like the graphics - they are simple yet effective. The UI is also very clear and intuitive. The length of the game is good for game jam and it is not very difficult.

gerbo 2020-04-20 10:53

nice game! my highest score was 180, i played a couple times

plopmenz 2020-04-20 10:55

Nice game! Those rabbits sure breed quickly XD

dpeet1 2020-04-20 10:55

I enjoyed playing around with different combinations of animals to get higher scores. The UI is very neat and simple, I like the aesthetic of the game. Would love to see where this game could go with a bigger board, maybe a few more combinations of animals that interact in different ways. Good job!

fictions 2020-04-20 10:56

I like the population aspect of the game. The gameplay is well designed and executed - especially the turn based nature of the game. Good Job! :smile:

rob-parker 2020-04-20 10:58

This was a really nice game! Graphics were simple but nice and game was really easy to pick up and play. I loved it.

headchant 2020-04-20 11:00

Very nice and interesting game. My highscore was 370.

jaschez 2020-04-20 11:00

Such an interesting concept! Shows great potential and like the way the game ask you for some strategy to balance the environment. With more elements and some music the game would get even more interesting!

goutye 2020-04-20 11:01

Well done! I like the strategy around the species and the environment. My first try was horrible, but the next one got me around 203 points! :smile:

corruptor2037 2020-04-20 11:05

I love games like this so much, it is very interesting to interact with complex systems and look for what you have done through time. It's perfect

chloeofarroyo 2020-04-20 11:08

Thanks for the feedback everyone! @headchant wow, I'd really like to know how you got that high, i didnt get close to that in testing! xD

@Plopmenz what can I say, Rabbits be rabbitin ;)

soarendev 2020-04-20 12:45

Got 179 points! Didn't expected the rabbit to colonize that quickly^^ (but that's realistic eh)

I'm a big fan of systemic games so I really liked yours. Really good job being able to create a system in only 48h^^ I really see the potential of adding even more tiles and interactions between them to create even more surprising events!

(The art is really cute too :o)

toasteater 2020-04-20 12:50

Got about 240 on the second try. It's very fun to see things interact in a cellular-automaton-like fashion. The game feels balanced, and the visual style are also very nice. Good work!

teo-miklethun 2020-04-20 12:58

What a delightful and highly polished game! Out of curiousity, how is the "total" calculated. I had a total of 160 organisms, but the "total" score was 306.

chloeofarroyo 2020-04-20 13:14

@teo-miklethun thanks! each type of plant / animal is scored uniquely (how is shown on the right hand side when you select that type). Things that are harder to keep alive score more, i.e: * Each Meadow score 1/2 a point (rounded down) * Each Forest scores 1 point * each Rabbit colony scores 1 point * Each Deer scores 2 points (there can be up to 3 in a herd) * Each Wolf scores 4 points (and again there can be up to 3 in a pack)

Thanks for the feedback, in future versions I will make this more obvious / intuitive :)

jonahsenzel 2020-04-20 14:48

really intersting game, made me think about wolf survival. I'm alawys thinking of wolves strictly as predators or evil but without anything to eat they die out too, great perspective

axeltherabbit 2020-04-20 15:34

One of the bests games I've seen so far :), please consider to add the fullscreen button on itch.io

chloeofarroyo 2020-04-20 15:43

@axeltherabbit thanks so much! I just tested this and seem that by hardcoding the resolution in unity, if i enable full screen it just fills a corner at the resolution I hardcoded :( A learning point for next time, but given we are past the cutoff not sure if i can change this now?

tom-kun 2020-04-20 16:35

Well Made! I like the overall presentation! I am not a fan of simulation games, but after I tried playing the first day, I just couldn't stop till the end! Simple yet effective design!

onnofal 2020-04-20 18:35

Smooth and elegant, quickly played through, not too serious and still touching something important. One-bite game where only thing I feel as a pity is the complete absence of any audio. In this case it would be pretty cheap (just some ambience and some UI interaction) way how to level it even more up. Overall very nice.

jabdownsmash 2020-04-20 19:39

I love the assets! The short game times are great too, I went in and tried a few different strategies. I managed to get 2195 by ignoring rabbits and focusing on breeding enough deer to feed as many wolves as possible in year 3. I do wish the timer would go up a bit faster :stuck_out_tongue:

You did a great job with the balance in this game, though I think optimal play takes away from the message of the game (if it were to generate into a year 4, my 2000 score ecology would collapse immediately). Future versions of this game could try to focus on longevity perhaps? Even the game as it is is already pretty fun and could be a good mobile game.

randdir 2020-04-21 11:14

Well what can we say, ho yes I know first time I saw an intelligent and clever "game of life style". Really good concept here that should improve on it. Keep it that way pal !

alex-mulkerrin 2020-04-21 16:37

Really nice ecology game with interesting choices in strategy to make. The hand drawn artstyle is very nice. My best attempt I went a little overboard with rabbit colonies :P Rewilding rabbits.png

chloeofarroyo 2020-04-22 11:02

Thanks for the amazing feedback everyone! This is just a small update to announce a bug fix, as it seems my sleep-deprived sunday evening brain made a rather silly error - basically, the final score caluclation was as follows: ``` totalScore = meadowScore + forestScore + rabbitScore + deerScore + wolfScore + totalScore; ``` Now you can probably see the problem there - every game added the player's score for the previous game, exponentially increasing the score they get no matter what :P! I have removed the errant totalScore and reuploaded to itch / bitbucket, so congratulations @jabdownsmash - you will reign as the highest scoring player for eternity, as aint noone gonna get a score as high as that again! ;)

This however has been a good insight for me, as having a more complex scoring method that reward interactions between species seems like it would be a great way to reward players for experimentation and coming up with sustainable ecosystems - would of course be interested in any thoughts on this idea! :)

tobiasw 2020-04-22 12:51

Never went above 172 points, sadly - but damn, this is interesting. I didn't even know that there *are* rewilding specialists, so it's pretty unique to play as one. The game also seems pretty balanced, as I assume ecosystems should be. Apart from one deer-forest-monoculture I didn't have much luck getting clever with it. The graphics are simple, but pleasing to look at and work well. Good job!

mudlee 2020-04-22 17:15

I like this idea very much. My only complaint here is that the simulation goes so fast I can't really understand which move is done for what reason. The minimalistic hand drawn(?) graphics was the best! With some minimalistic sound it would hit a good rate I guess.

chloeofarroyo 2020-04-22 17:42

@mudlee interesting, thanks for the feedback! I have to admit that tinkering with the speed of things took up an inordinate amount of time - I just couldn’t find a good balance between not making the game slow but having slower movements - out of curiosity, do you think if they moved simultaneously / several at once, that would be more or less confusing?

Yes graphics were hand drawn, though on a computer not on paper - the original plan was to redraw it all on cartridge paper and scan it in, but alas I ran out of time! Thanks for the feedback :)

weirdybeardyman 2020-04-23 18:23

Interesting concept, very nice art and quick and simple gameplay, very nice submission.

remco 2020-04-25 23:01

The theme is very on point here! (I love all the wildly different nature based games that we get with 'Keep Alive'.)

I like that there's not just one way to do things, and that those tie together at the top of the food chain. That you can try to do so much with so little elements is the hallmark of a good strategy game, I think.

From the looks of it, some other people got quite far with 'only meadows & rabbits'. Monoculture may not have been your intent when designing this game though.... In that case, I think it would work a bit better if there where penalties, or if score didn't go up linearly.

I didn't even miss sound effects that much, but I'm always surprised when people leave those out, since simple ones are quite easy to make.